Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life

by Anna Fienberg

  The man gave the leash a pull and said, ‘Heel!’ The tiger yawned, showing two sharp yellow fangs, and sat back on its haunches.

  ‘Good afternoon, good afternoon, delighted to meet you!’ cried the man, making the most of his greeting as he did with all things. His mouth smiled to reveal perfect teeth but his eyes darted about like quick black fish.

  Zed thought the man’s face had the raw look of undercooked meat. His skin was red and flushed, his jaw clenched hard. Under his smoothly pressed coat his shoulders and belly bulged. He was like a boulder in a silk suit.

  ‘Goodshot’s the name. Daniel Goodshot at your service!’ He put out his hand to shake. Zed noticed that his nails were manicured, but his skin had a cold reptilian feel.

  Suddenly Mr Jones shot his head out of Zed’s shirt. His eyes were wide with terror as he gazed at the tiger, and he began to chatter in ear-splitting bursts. Ignoring him, the tiger stared calmly into space, looking noble and very expensive in its gold-and-black fur.

  ‘Yes, yes, anybody worth his salt has a familiar, by jiminy!’ cried Mr Goodshot, looking at the shivering Mr Jones.

  ‘Familiar?’ said Zed, stroking the monkey’s head.

  ‘Yes—Witches have black cats, Business Managers have tigers, and Boys keep monkeys. All goes with the image. Now you my boy, what’s your line? I bet you’re in the plantation business here, am I right? Great soil for the old coffee bean, I’d make a bet. What’s your slogan—I can think of one now—“Drink our coffee through the day for punch and pep in every way”. Good, eh? I’m like that, ideas just come to me. That’s why I’m so successful. So, what is it, coffee, cocoa, tobacco? Make a fortune here, right? Looks like a great little island, right off the map, no tax man here, poking his nose in, sniffing around damn him, am I right?’ He rubbed his hands together and looked eagerly from Electra to Zed.

  ‘Well, actually,’ began Zed, ‘I’m just here on holiday.’

  ‘Holiday, eh? Already made your fortune, I’ll bet.’ He punched Zed playfully on the shoulder. ‘Boy like you, independent thinker, a real go-getter, I shouldn’t wonder. So now it’s the good life, eh, beautiful women, spot of windsurfing, a yacht in the bay, huh?’

  Zed shook his head, but the NZ in him smiled.

  ‘And what’s your line of business, Mr Goodshot?’ asked Electra.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘People, that’s my business. Management is about people—and their money.’ He smiled at her, showing his white teeth. ‘Let me tell you a little story. From the day I was written I’ve sucked the best out of everything. I’ve invested in gold, I’ve bought shares in oil, tobacco, arms, I’ve played the stock market, bought banks, you name it, I’ve done it.’ He tapped his chest. ‘A success story, that’s what I am, but don’t you tell the tax man! Ha ha!’

  He turned back to the plane and waved. The pilot waiting inside shouted something and waved back, and the engine grew to a roar as the plane made a slow wide circle and lifted off. They all stood and watched as it grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared behind the clouds.

  ‘Well, that’s that and on to better things!’ said Daniel Goodshot. He pulled out a cigar from his breast pocket. ‘Care for one? A cigarette maybe?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Electra.

  ‘I thought you smoked?’ said Zed.

  Electra wrinkled her nose. ‘I hate it. I only do it to annoy Miss Heckle.’

  ‘Who’s Miss Heckle?’ asked Goodshot. ‘Who’s in charge round here? Who owns the banks? Are there any casinos? Now there’s a good line—you’d make a bomb with all the tourists coming here. Let’s get going. Time’s money.’ He picked up his briefcase, yanked on the tiger’s leash, and headed off with long purposeful strides up the beach.

  ‘I wonder if Mr Goodshot would agree to be in my film,’ said Electra thoughtfully as they followed him. ‘He could be one of the reasons for Pessimism in the Modern World.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Zed. But he was thinking about something else. He was imagining himself as a real go-getter, an independent thinker.

  Zed was thinking so hard he didn’t see the half-formed shadow accompanying Mr Goodshot. It moved awkwardly, not echoing the bulky man’s form. It was thin and snake-like, not human, and it was barely there. But the tiger kept looking back and now and then snapped at it, uneasy, as if it were alive.

  11. A NASTY SURPRISE FOR CLARA KRANTZBUR

  MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE of the world, Clara Krantzbur had just suffered the worst defeat of her business career. She was in her apartment in New York, on the forty-ninth floor doing sit-ups.

  Clara’s first rule was to do something positive when a crisis struck. And she was right in the middle of one now, let me tell you, and up to her thirty-first sit-up.

  ‘Why me?’ she puffed, looking out over the evening skyline, ‘why should this happen to me? I’m young, I’m famous, I’m the toast of New York—and now Daniel Goodshot walks into my life. Ugh!’

  Just saying his name was enough to make Clara fall flat on her back in pain. She abandoned the sit-ups and lay prone, her arms sticking out either side of her as if she’d been shot. She lay looking out through her wall-to-wall windows and stayed there, without even getting into her satin pyjamas, for the rest of the night.

  Clara Krantzbur was in deep despair.

  Two years before, the city of New York had voted Clara Krantzbur Business Woman of the Year. And in a tough, competitive city like this one, that was something to celebrate. Every morning, while she ate her breakfast (raw egg-white mixed with orange juice—she was a splendid physical specimen), she read articles about herself.

  ‘Smart Ms Krantzbur has climbed the success ladder with startling speed,’ they said. And ‘Ms Krantzbur’s business acumen is a model to us all. She knows how to manage people, and people are her business. That’s her motto!’ And ‘Ms Krantzbur is a living monument to hard work and the American way!’ Clara devoured them with glee. For the first time in her life everybody knew how to spell her name.

  Clara went to cocktail parties where she met senators, movie stars, bosses with wallets as fat as footballs, and they all wanted her to manage them. Oh yes, she loved being famous. She went out to dinner every night—only to the best restaurants—and was seen sipping champagne with ambassadors.

  Well now, what better way to advertise your success (and make money into the bargain) than to write a book about it? Preferably a best-seller. Keeton, Kurtain and Kat Pty Ltd, the richest publishers in New York, got to Clara first. They sniffed out her favourite restaurant, ordered her favourite food, then floated the idea before her.

  ‘You mean,’ said the flabbergasted Ms Krantzbur, choking on her oyster, ‘you want me to write a book about my life? Well, I’m very flattered, gentlemen. Now let’s see, I could start with the time I won the deal with—’

  ‘Well yes, but there is one small difficulty,’ said Mr Keeton, of Keeton, Kurtain and Kat, ‘you see, we really find that books with a business angle sell best when they are written from a man’s point of view.’

  Clara Krantzbur dropped her fork.

  ‘What my partner is trying to say,’ interposed Mr Kat, ‘is that we would like a book written by your esteemed self about the male of the species, the traditional bread-winner, as it were.’

  ‘But you may use material from your own life, please feel free,’ added Mr Kurtain. ‘Just pretend you are a businessman.’

  Clara Krantzbur, at first, was outraged. She was an example of intelligent womanhood, and she wanted the world to know about it! Businessman indeed, the very idea! By the main course she was only slightly furious. By dessert, when Keeton, Kurtain and Kat offered her a sum that would allow her to live on an ocean liner in the Caribbean for a year and have parties, she accepted.

  And that was the beginning of the downfall of Clara Krantzbur.

  Late one night, a month later, Clara sat at her computer. She was bewildered, and not a little afraid. For up there on the screen was a hero she just didn’t understand. The
name she had given him was Daniel Goodshot, a man with business acumen as sharp as her own. But he had turned out to be cunning, sly, a cheat and a thief. A man of no principles. How could she have created such a character? Vile was the only word for him.

  Suddenly the air stirred behind her and she swivelled round on her chair. There, lounging opposite her, was a big man in a dark suit with a briefcase in his lap. He was swinging his foot in a nonchalant manner.

  Clara jumped. ‘What do you mean by not paying your taxes?’

  Daniel Goodshot smiled. ‘What is the aim of any good businessman in the free-for-all enterprise system? To make as much mulah as possible, am I right?’

  ‘First of all, Mr Goodshot,’ Clara said with asperity, ‘it’s free enterprise, not free-for-all. You make it sound like a street fight. There are rules, you know, you have to obey the law for a start.’

  ‘Ah law, coleslaw, it’s only something you put on your salad, ha, ha! You and me both know there’s ways around it, got it? Stick with me, babe, and you’ll go far. Lots of suckers out there who want to know how to bend the rules, right?’

  Clara argued with him for an hour. Then she went to bed. He made her sick to her stomach.

  And it was the same every night. He paced around the living room trailing foul clouds of cigar smoke. He interrupted her work, told her what to write, criticised her friends. He wanted to meet politicians, corporate managers, people with Power, by jiminy! He had schemes, see, and he needed help. She tried to write another character in, but Goodshot always interfered. Of course sometimes he had brilliant ideas—why, he had learnt everything from her! If she could only swing him round to being the Good Guy instead of the Bad, her book could still be a success.

  Clara had not been into the office for weeks. Her staff were calling her, desperate. Business was slipping, they said. What was she doing?

  But how could she leave a man like Daniel Goodshot alone? She wrestled and struggled and pleaded with him until something happened one night, and she saw that he would have to go.

  Now, Clara had a small room in her apartment that was always locked with a key. No-one knew it, but inside the room was a pile of books on Magic. Clara didn’t ever consult these books as Great Aunt Mayhem, who had given them to her, was an untidy, clumsy, silly sort of woman—the kind Clara was embarrassed to have as a relative. And besides, Clara was a Rationalist, and didn’t approve of spells and suchlike. But Great Aunt Mayhem had left her these books in her will, so Clara had kept them locked up, with the key hidden under her mattress. After all, it wouldn’t do to let them fall into the wrong hands.

  Now, with all his scheming ways, Goodshot came to know about the room and the Magic books and the key. In the early hours of the morning, when Clara, exhausted, had fallen asleep, he stole in there and found them. He took the biggest one, and every night he read a chapter, wrote down spells, and practised.

  One night Clara had a terrible dream and woke up suddenly, her heart banging. She heard noises coming from the Magic Room. She searched under her mattress. The key was gone. With a leaden feeling in her chest she crept out into the hall. From there she saw the yellow line of light lying under the door of the Magic Room.

  In one step she leapt across the hall and burst in. There she found Goodshot standing under the hanging light, the Magic book in his hand. She stared at him. His eyes were gleaming and under the harsh light Clara saw the beginnings of a twisting, snake-like shadow slithering at his feet.

  ‘What are you doing here, with that shadow?’ cried Clara. ‘You’ve got no business having one!’

  Goodshot tapped the book. ‘Magic, my dear Ms Krantzbur, magic. You did wrong to ignore this treasure. Soon I’ll be a success like you, only stronger, more powerful. Ha ha!’ And he lit a cigar. ‘You want to make a bet?’

  Clara wrested the book out of his hands and trod on the shadow. She pushed him out of the room and went to sit at her desk.

  She had to do something. Should she erase him? Cancel the ‘Save’ button? But she’d spent so much time on him. He had all her good ideas! Who could help her? A fellow author, perhaps. Surely this kind of thing had happened to other writers. She thought. She did ten sit-ups. She considered.

  Concetta Windwood, that’s who! She’d met Concetta at a Club Med holiday one time in France. Interesting woman. She’d mentioned something about her characters misbehaving, and how she sent them to some island or other. She’d said it jokingly, but maybe she did have a method to make them behave. With a rush of hope, Clara reached for the phone…

  12. FORMULA FOR LIVING, BY GOODSHOT

  DANIEL GOODSHOT WAS pleased with himself. He’d found a nice little room in town with pots of orchids on the windowsill and a balcony for his tiger. That was a good touch, the tiger. He’d magicked him up in the plane (the pilot’s face was something to remember, ha, ha!) and it gave him just the right image, yessiree! He frowned. He still had a long way to go with magic. The tiger had a tendency to fade and disappear now and then. Goodshot had much to learn about Staying Spells.

  He rubbed his hands together. So far so good. He’d done a bit of research into the Island inhabitants, and in his opinion they were all about as wised-up as a pack of lemmings. Putty in his hands, they’d be. And now he was due at this School. He’d meet the Boss Lady and mix with the masses. He’d see if he couldn’t do some business here! What this island needed was a good shake-up, and Daniel Goodshot was the man to do it. He picked up his briefcase, smiled into the mirror, and patted the dictaphone in his right breast pocket.

  He was ready.

  Ariel stared at the man who’d just walked in. She watched him bend and smile, his perfect white teeth glinting. So perfect, she thought, they must be false. His eyes were small and flat like those of a fish. Principle No.1: Be suspicious of people whose mouths smile but not their eyes. (Avoid them.) Strange, she hadn’t had to think about that since she’d been on the Island. But Daniel Goodshot made her feel uneasy.

  No-one else in the room seemed to react that way, though.

  They laughed and nodded as he spoke, charmed. He strolled through the room like a showman, slinging a confident arm round a shoulder here, slapping a back there, winking admiringly at Sleeping Beauty.

  ‘He’s a success story, that one,’ said Zed sitting next to her.

  ‘What’s he doing here then?’ asked Ariel.

  Zed shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s smarter than his author.’

  ‘A lot of us are,’ said Electra on his other side. ‘Well, he’ll be someone to talk to at 2.00 a.m.—I bet he never sleeps, either.’

  There was a hush in the room as Miss Heckle raised her hand. ‘I’d like you all to welcome Mr Daniel Goodshot,’ she announced, ‘a new arrival to our island.’

  Goodshot stood up and straightened his bow tie.

  ‘Thankyou one and all. And very pleasant it is to be here. Now, good people, let’s get down to business. As I see it, we’ve gotta lot of work ahead of us, and first we gotta get our Mission Statement right.’

  ‘Our what?’ chorused the room.

  Daniel flicked the air impatiently. ‘You know, our goals, our objectives. As far as I can see, the tourist industry here is dead as a dinosaur. We gotta get the right attractions going. A couple of nightclubs, cocktail bars open twenty-four hours, a casino—that’s real important. And on the beach a few high rise hotels’d do the trick, by jiminy.’

  ‘Very good, Daniel,’ approved Miss Heckle. ‘Your author would be proud of you. But first, like any good businessman, you have to look at the needs of the community. This kind of er, business, is not quite the thing for the Island.’

  ‘Well, we better make it the thing, Miss Heckle,’ said Goodshot, his fish eyes narrowing. ‘This place is a tax haven, right, and the way I see it your duty as Boss Lady is to exploit it to its full potential. Get the dough flowing in, the ball rolling, and we’re laughing, right?’

  ‘Thankyou, Daniel, you can sit down now, and start reading your Business Ethics Manual.’<
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  ‘Pack a’ amateurs,’ muttered Goodshot as he slumped down on his seat like a mud slide.

  He watched, dispirited, as Ali Baba was pushed into having a sword fight with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Ali kindly swiped at the air above as the Sheriff sat in his usual yoga position, meditating. Bertha gave a demonstration of changing nappies but she stuck the safety pin into her finger at the first try and refused to do anything further.

  Goodshot opened his briefcase and took out his dictaphone. It was small and black and square with several buttons for recording and taping. It was the latest model. He put it to his mouth and began talking softly into it. Ariel leaned forward to hear.

  Just then there was a stir and a rustle of voices as the giant leprechaun, Brogan, lumbered in. His green hat sat cocked on his head like a small house on a hill. The ground trembled slightly as he walked.

  He sank down into the big chair next to Daniel. ‘Plased to see ye, me name’s Brogan,’ he said in a thunderclap whisper, and nearly broke Daniel’s hand as he shook it.

  Daniel smiled warmly and when Brogan faced the front again, he spoke into his dictaphone. ‘Source No.1, Leithe Brogan. Giant of a man, silly as a sheep, so I’ve heard, would give anything away, even his mother’s lottery winnings. Work on his love for his fellow sheep, ha ha!’ He looked around the room and caught Zed’s eye. Zed mouthed ‘Hi!’ and winked suavely like the go-getter he wanted to be.

  Goodshot closed his hand over the dictaphone and put it to his mouth. ‘Source No.2, Boy called Zed. Flattery will get me everywhere.’

  But then he saw Ariel staring, her eyebrows arched like question marks. Whispering, he told his dictaphone, ‘Girl called Ariel. Got the right name, ears like a TV antenna. Could be a KGB agent. Nosy parker. Keep an eye on her.’ He paused and thought for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Weezle background info on both kids from Boss Lady at the School—get their weak spots, ambitions. There’s sure to be something I can use.’